“Wait,” the tech says, as he dislodges his machine. But I can’t. My bladder feels huge and I try to see if I can reach over to the bathroom with my IV arm sticking out of the door because I’m gonna go soon. But it won’t reach. I put my hand between my legs, thinking that will stop the pee, but it doesn’t, and I feel the warm stream filling my pajama pants and hissing its way onto the floor.
The tears stream down almost as quickly. “I didn’t make it,” I say, in barely a whisper. The man is uncomfortable and shocked. He’s pushing his x-ray machine out the door, and he tries to look away but suddenly gets nervous, and says, “I’ll tell your nurse.” I know he just wants to get the hell out of that room, and away from me, and I don’t blame him.
I am helpless. This is what I have become now—a soggy mess on the floor, a woman who can’t control her body.
My father drops off my mother and leaves to grab some dinner. I can hear her voice from far away, and when she rounds the corner into my room, she is smiling. But the corners of her mouth drop when she sees me crying.
“What, what is it?” she says.
“Oh, it’s just too much. I need Charlie.”
“Where is Charlie?”
“I don’t know. At work?” The room still smells like piss, which makes it worse.
“So, what’s wrong?” she asks, throwing her purse on the chair.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I collapse into bed in new pajamas, my head in her arms like a child. I lie there like this even after an orderly has mopped the floor, even after my father has come up from the parking lot with armfuls of take-out boxes and my mother has shooed him away. I imagine he is in a waiting room somewhere, giving us space.
When I finally come up for air, she says, “What, anak?”
“The kidney,” I tell her.
“You’re not losing Charlie’s kidney,” she reassures me.
“We don’t know that.”
“Well, is it that? Is that what you’re afraid of?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “maybe this was a mistake. Maybe this transplant shouldn’t have happened.”
My mother takes a box of tissues from a drawer in the bedside table.
“If I lose this kidney ...” I start.
“What’s going to happen to you and Charlie?” she finishes.
The roots of my mother’s black hair are turning gray. You can’t really tell from afar, but I am so close to her now, I can see them. She hasn’t been home for weeks, so she hasn’t had them done. And now her eyes are thick with tears. I am making her look old.
“Ay!” she sighs. “I knew this would happen.”
“Mom!” I don’t want to hear an I-told-you-so moment from her right now.
“No,” she says, continuing to rub my head. “I knew it would be hard.” She seems annoyed by the situation now, making tsk sounds under her breath. “You think you have to feel everything he feels, huh?
“Look,” she says, taking off her glasses and folding them into her hands. “You were twenty-eight when you and Charlie were transplanted, right? When you committed to help one another.” She pauses. “When I was twenty-eight, I married your father in a church in Manila.”
This I know. I’m afraid that she’s going to tell me the story of their meeting. It’s strange when you find out your parents have a Romeo and Juliet past. A skinny kid from Manila with a nice smile, my father was always sweet. When he laughed, no sounds came out, just a warm subtle grin. My mother was so different then, coming from a wealthy family in Manila, the daughter of a prominent lawyer, who was in the inner circles of President Ferdinand Marcos. President Aquino, too. Filipino royalty. My mother was the second of four sisters, and as she describes, “I was the funny one.” I can almost imagine her and her insult comedy. She tells me over and over again the story of how she and my father met. They were in the same class in medical school before my mother dropped out. It’s a good story, but it’s not exactly what I want to hear now.
Nor do I want to hear about how my father made it to the States. He came to New York City in 1969 and worked in a blood bank on Bleecker Street. When he finally saved up enough money to get an apartment in Massachusetts and airfare from the Philippines, he flew my mother over. In our old photo albums, there are black-and-white pictures of her deplaning a TWA bird, with her bouffant of a hairdo and a very American-looking suit. She was going to be a doctor’s wife. In America.
“I know, Mom!” I say. I don’t need an encore.
“I know you know. But what you didn’t know was this. When I came here I was so alone. I didn’t know anybody. I wanted to go home. I cried in the apartment all day while your dad was at work. It was hard, anak. But I had to come here because your father was here, and he was doing what he always wanted to do. He was sad for me, but he had to keep working. And he needed me to be here with him.
“Sometimes love is sacrifice, babe. And sometimes, you just have to live with that, whether you are the one sacrificing or not.”
I pull the bed sheet up to my face to try to keep my nose from running. There’s a lot I want to say, but not to my mother. Not right now. I think: He gave me his kidney. I owe it to him to keep it. I don’t want him to regret this. What is this between me and Charlie now? What have I done? I am ruining a solid relationship.
“Of course, this is still a love story,” my mother continues, like she is reading my mind. “Can you imagine? Giving your body to someone else purely because you love that person? I think you forget sometimes that these people—your brother, Charlie—they are trying to save you. They have sacrificed for you. I think you forget how sick you really were. This miraculous transplant saved you from getting worse. From maybe dying, anak. Yes, it means Charlie loves you because he gave you a kidney, but if it doesn’t take, that doesn’t mean anything about his love. You might feel bad because he feels bad. But he gave you this so you can go back to being you. Now think. This is your body. Your mind. Who is this person I made?
“Of course, this is love. But this is also your story. This is about how you survived. How you are surviving. Charlie is doing fine. Now is not the time to worry about him. How are you going to get through this? You,” she says, pointing to me.
Chapter Ten
An American Ragtime Orchestra Plays the Tunes of Love
By day twelve of the unknown disease, everyone looks exhausted. My mother has worn her thumbprint into the wooden rosary beads that she hides deep inside her shirtsleeve. My father’s already droopy eyes sag even farther down his face. These days, my parents and Charlie look like wilted flowers propped up against the walls of my hospital room. They come to life only when a doctor comes in, but shrivel back down when still no diagnosis just means more tests.
So much for magic, so much for our cells combining and our souls converging. I look at Charlie longingly at times, hoping that the kidney stays, that Charlie feels better, and that the love between us is real. My mother doesn’t know what Charlie said at the doctor’s office, and I don’t want to tell her. But when I replay his words in my head, I can almost feel my body dissolving, the very tissue that holds us together coming apart.
When Blondie finally explains what I have, her diagnosis doesn’t make sense to me.
“Histoplasmosis,” she says again, this time slower.
“Fungal?” my father the physician says, looking surprised.
“It’s a fungal infection that we often see here in the Ohio Valley. The spores are in the air and usually come from bat or bird droppings. Now, have you been eating animal droppings?” Blondie jokes.
“Bat shit?” I say. “No.”
“Whoa!” Charlie perks up. While the thought of bat shit invading my system is grossing out everyone in the room, I am sure that Charlie is mesmerized by the possibility of this. He’s probably wondering if people take bat shit as a hallucinogen.
“I’m just kidding. Usually we see it in farmers because they spend so much time in the dirt,” Blondie says.
My mother jumps out of her seat: �
�They live in the basement!” She points at me and Charlie as she talks. “They breathe in dirt all the time. I knew it. See? I told you.”
Blondie laughs and says, “We all get it. It’s in the air. But most of us have the immune system to fight it off.” She turns to face me again. “But you don’t.”
“Lucky me.”
“Lucky you. With all those immunosuppressants we’re giving you for the transplant, the fungus found a nice place to stay. Your immunity is suppressed because of all the anti-rejection drugs, so you probably got what everyone gets, but we are just better at fighting the disease off.”
“So, I can go home now?”
“Not quite,” she says. “We’re going to have to give you some heavy-duty antibiotics for a heavy-duty infection like this. We’ll give them to you through an IV.”
“I know what that means.”
“You’ll be in here for a while longer until we can get these drugs working. It will take a while for your body to respond. You might still have the fevers. But you’ll still be here so we can watch them.”
Outside, the air already looks a little bit crisper. When Charlie comes to visit, the skin underneath his stubble is rosy and his curly blond hair looks windblown. Now that we know what is wrong with me, we know how to treat it. My parents are still in Iowa with us, but roaming around the town less frantically than they were before. My father can’t stop talking about the hotel where they are staying.
Later that night, the smell of chicken patties and mashed potatoes lingers in the hall. I’m repulsed by the odor, but live with it for now because I feel like this situation is temporary. I’m going home soon. They’ll give me medicine through an IV for a few weeks and then they’ll eventually send me home.
My parents have left for the night, getting ready to head back to Pittsburgh in a few days. My father has fewer things to worry about, so he stops fussing over me and instead starts calling his office at home and worrying about his patients there. Sometimes, when he does feel moved to talk, he doesn’t discuss my health with me. Instead, he sticks to talking about the hotel in which he has stayed for several weeks. He says that this little dinky hotel in Iowa has been his most favorite hotel in his whole life. His whole life! He swears. “The hardboiled eggs are boiled just right,” he says.
Blondie warns me that even though the doctors have identified the disease and are beginning to treat it, the effects of the medication won’t be seen for a few days.
“You still might be getting the same symptoms for a while,” she says. “So, we’ll keep you here just a little longer. We’ll keep the nurses checking on you.”
As Charlie and I sit in silence, I feel my legs start to shake, and then my shoulders. It’s one of those fevers again when the shaking will not stop. I need a shot of Demerol to make it stop. I try to tell Charlie this, but all that comes out is “Ch-Ch-Char—”
He notices only when the rail of the bed starts shaking. He turns. “The fever! Hold on,” he says, pressing down on my arms to hold them still.
He presses the nurses” call button. “Nurse! She needs the shot!” he says into the box.
“We’ll be right there,” a grainy voice answers.
I can’t stop shaking. Even my head writhes on the pillow, and Charlie puts a hand on my forehead to keep it still. I know these are the lasting effects of the virus. I know this is the end of it. If I didn’t keep these ideas in my head, I would be panicking now.
Charlie holds me down but screams out the door this time into the hall.
“Hello?!”
The male nurse comes in, concerned, but holding nothing.
“She needs the shot! Give her the shot!” Charlie screams, in a role reminiscent of Shirley MacLaine.
“Right,” the nurse says. He turns and returns with just what I need. And Charlie stays there with me until the shaking stops, until I’m fast asleep.
The next night, the room is empty and i turn off the light over the bed so only the last fading rays of the sun come through the windows. I don’t hear any alarms or call buttons down the hall. It’s almost peaceful. I think that this is the quietest place I’ve been in a while.
I breathe and exhale purposefully. Again. I have never liked the idea of being alone in a hospital room. When I was young, I would almost panic if I found myself in a space like this, in this vulnerable cave that invites in people who want to deconstruct your parts, to break you down. I always thought that it was better to have someone there who knew how to put you back together again. The right way.
“Meditating?”
I open my eyes to Charlie’s familiar face, his reddish stubble now grown into a full beard, his eyes catching the reflection of sun. He is dreamy.
The male nurse pops in after Charlie nestles into a chair. “Need anything?” he says.
“No, I’ve got everything I need,” I tell him.
“So, everything is going to be fine,” Charlie says.
“I’m so happy I’m not losing this kidney.”
“Yeah, ’cause I don’t have another one to give.”
“Not that you would give it up.” It just comes out, like a piercing knife that you accidentally toss in the direction of a friend.
“Excuse me?” Charlie says, daring me to repeat it. “Is that what you think?”
I look down at the ground.
“Why would you say that, Moon?”
“You told that doctor that you regret it.”
“No, I said I wouldn’t do it again,” he clarifies.
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” he says louder now, his voice in a deadlock with mine.
“Then why did you say it?”
He pauses. His sneakers squeak against the newly mopped floor as he steps closer and then farther, like he’s trying to find a good place to stop.
“Man, Moonface, everything about that surgery hurt like a bitch. If I had to go through it again, it might drive me crazy.” Even as he says it now, grimacing as he remembers, I start to sink in the bed, my body feeling like deadweight.
“You know, Charlie, I’ve been wondering what it would be like if I never got this kidney, if I just stayed on dialysis. I mean, maybe I was being greedy or selfish. Maybe I could have stayed on dialysis forever, and we wouldn’t have to worry about this.”
“Well, you hated dialysis, and no one is worrying about this but you.”
I can hear the anger in his voice rising, and it worries me more now that I’m worrying too much. He stands up and turns around like he’s going to leave, and then turns back toward me. “Why are you so insane? Why do you and that crazy surgeon worry about what you would do different? What if it never happened? What if you just stayed on dialysis forever? What if we never met? What if I never got drunk and hit on you that night? What’s the use in wondering? We’ll never know.”
“I just think it would be easier sometimes.”
“So after all this, after all that we’ve been through, after we know everything is going to be okay, now you’re going to take a second look at this? We didn’t do this transplant so we could look back all the time. We’ve got to look forward, Moonface. You want to get out of here? You want to quit worrying about your health?”
“I don’t want to be sick anymore,” I tell him. “Okay,” he says, sounding somewhat relieved. “I just want a normal life,” I continue. “Okay. What else do you want? I’ll get it for you.”
“I want us to be crazy in love,” I say.
“Well, you’re crazy. And I’m in love,” he says, easing into a dreamy smile.
“And while I’m at it, I want to get married. I want babies. I want little Charlie O”Doyles walking around in sailor suits.”
“Well,” he leans in close so we’re almost touching noses, “you ain’t gonna get that. Not with me. I have big plans for us. Next summer we’re hopping freight trains across Canada. This winter, we’re buying a motorcycle with a side car and we’re touring all over the French Alps.” Then he stands back a
nd waits for me to fill in the next line.
ACT III
Chapter Eleven
The Famous Minstrels of Baltimore under Exclusive Engagement in Moonface’s Head
After I graduate, I ask Charlie what’s next for us. “Tell me where you want to go, Charlie. Seriously, I’ll take you anywhere.” I am cocky now, with a masters degree under my belt and a body that works. “Freight trains? For real?”
“I’m tired, Moonface,” Charlie says. “Let’s go home.” He slouches into the couch and from the look on his face, I know he means “home” as in “easy,” where we can take a breath. I know he means Baltimore. While it hasn’t technically been our home for a long time, it is a welcoming place to return, it’s close to our families and friends, and it’s familiar.
Just like when we moved to Iowa, we pull into our new city with all our belongings in yet another neatly packed rented truck—how easily our possessions and organs move from one place to the next. As we head east toward where the states huddle in a corner of the map, I already miss Iowa’s wide open spaces, its white lawn chairs in high grass, its lacy curtain hems sweeping against the windowsills. But here the lush green lawns of the Midwest are replaced by the gray concrete of Baltimore. The idleness of broad Iowa streets is replaced by the swift and jerky movements of trains, cars, and even bikers who pop themselves high over their seats and lunge into traffic without fear.
It’s as if those bikers embrace the message on the posters that hang from every building in the city—believe, the signs read in thick white letters against a plain black background. They hang from some of the city’s largest office buildings, from the windows of the skinny brick houses, from hotel canopies, and from City Hall. Smaller versions are on the bumpers of minivans and sporty wagons.
“Wow! This city really encourages its football team,” I tell Charlie when we pass yet another believe, thinking that the colors clearly resemble those of the city’s local NFL team.
“I don’t think those have anything to do with football,” Charlie snorts. Later, we find out that the signs are actually the mayor’s campaign to fight drugs. How better to fight the city’s increasing drug problem than to make its citizens believe it can happen? What else to do but post signs everywhere reminding citizens that believing is enough? The audacity of this little city, to think it can fight one of the nation’s largest epidemics. I kind of like its ambition.
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